Ever wonder what our beloved childhood video game memories would sound like if you took them to a ren faire and let them play? Wonder no more. You can download Gameboy Madrigals by Animal Style for free and find out first hand. Just go to iimusic.net, a newer net label featuring some of the best in experimental chiptune music and check out 8 tracks of awesome.
Joey Mariano (Animal Style) was inspired to create these tunes by early role playing and puzzle video games, Japanese folk melodies, and masters of the madrigal such as Francesco Landini. Early composers of the madrigal used only 2 to 3 voices to create counterpoint. The gameboy has only 3 melodic monophonic channels with which to create melodies. While Mariano admits that his mardrigals are by no means conventional and even break many of the standard rules, he feels they can be viewed as a modern extension of the medium. Retro video game tonalities are combined with Retro-Reniasance / Medieval mixtures of interlocking melodies on Songs like “Gather ‘Round Retrograde.” The Pentatonic scales and intricate bends of Japanese folk music are integrated into Mariano’s song “Tokyo Cornfeild in Antigravity.”
So… if you want to daydream about Yoshi, Sonic and Mario gettin’ their medieval jam on whilst you gnaweth on yon turkey leg and drink pint after pint of honey mead, go download Gameboy Madrigal, close your eyes and soak in the chiptastic sounds. And if you dig it, make sure you hit the donate button and show him some love.
(GAME DAME TRIVIA: I actually worked as a performer at Scarborough Renaissance Festival for 3 years which means I totally outnerd you.)
I’d never heard of Demetri Martin until today, and I feel totally gypped that I’ve been deprived of him for so long. He is HEEElarious. For those of you haven’t seen him before, I give you 10 Demetri Martin jokes:
Have you seen the new Pork and Beans video by Weezer? It’s pretty much the awesomest video ever. It’s a tribute to us geeks. A geek anthem, if you will. The video is a gathering of a ton of interweb celebs. It’s not digitally manipulated, they were really all together hanging out, partying and shooting. It’s totally brilliant. For the behind-the-scenes scoop, you can read an interview with video director Mathew Cullen on Wired.
On May 13, 2008, John Tyler Hammons was elected as mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma after winning 70% of the vote in a runoff election against 70-year-old, three-time former Muskogee mayor Hershel McBride. A freshman at the University of Oklahoma and just 19 years old, Hammons is one of the youngest mayors in United States history. w00t! Young dudes changin’ stuff up. Why am I writing about this here? Because John’s ain’t no political nerdbag. He’s says he’s a big gamer who loves movies, fast cars and rock and roll. Neat. He seems to really have his shit together, too:
As mayor, his first priorities are the creation of an independent ethics commission to monitor elected and appointed city officials. He also wants to establish campaign finance reporting requirements for those running for office.
“I’m sure the (city) council will work with me on these issues,” he said. “I campaigned on this, and this is something I intend to push.
“First and foremost, Muskogee is my one and only interest right now,” Hammons said from his office inside the city’s municipal building.
The senior class president at Muskogee High School in 2007, he served as president of both the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats clubs.
“I threw my name in both rings … and lo and behold, both groups elected me,” he said.
Hammons, a registered Republican, is Oklahoma’s youngest at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention. But when it comes to serving as mayor of Muskogee, an unpaid position, he plans to govern in a nonpartisan way.
“Politics stop at the door,” Hammons said. “If someone wants to talk politics, I will literally leave the office and leave the building if I have to. In this office, it needs to be Muskogee-oriented.” [SOURCE: Associated Press]
It started last night. I was in the middle of the Three Leaf Clover mission in GTA 4 and my screen froze. And not only did it freeze, a red checkered pattern vomited all over my precious Niko and where he stood in Liberty City. I could hear those ugly pixels talking to me. And you know what they said? “Guess what, hon. You’re about to earn your red rings.”
I did all the standard stuff. Rebooted. Cleaned the disk. Prayed. Tried not to start wailing uncontrollably… you know, the usual.
And then it happened again.
I convinced myself it was just my 360’s version of the Wii warning message:
because I’d been playing for about 8 hours straight and this had to just be the console’s way of telling me I should probably get up to like… Idunno… pee or something.
I put down the controller and let the console “rest” because I had a multiplayer date set up for tonight that I’d been looking forward to for weeks.
I booted up again tonight about 10 minutes before my friends were supposed to meet me online and decided to test out the freeze factor with one of Brucie’s races. Before I got out of my apartment to the street, it happened again. Watch. Reboot. Repeat. The checkers were mocking me. I tried to take a picture of them to put up here, but as soon as I got my camera out, those little demons ran away and my screen went black. They were sneaky little bastards.
I tried playing Bioshock to see if it was just a GTA 4 thing. It wasn’t.
I went through all the troubleshooting shit on the Microsoft support site and tried it again. This time it froze even more quickly. Luckily, my 360 is still under warranty with Microsoft AND I purchased the GameStop Xbox 360 replacement plan before they stopped selling them, so hopefully, I won’t be out of Liberty City for too long.
I called the Microsoft support line and listened to MAX – the super cool automated operator that answers when you call 1-800-4MY-XBOX (call it – it’s pretty funny.) He transferred me to Julie (a sweet girl with a REALLY thick accent that I had to squint and tilt my head to understand) and I went through the same effing troubleshooting tips I’d just gone through again. YAY! She had me clear my cache and try playing again. This time it didn’t freeze! Hooray! Could it be fixed? She gave me a case number just in … case. Everything was still running okay. I paused the game, finished the call and sat back down on the couch. Unpause. UN PAUSE. UNPAUUUUUSE!!!! It was frozen again.
There aren’t many things that can make me cry. Just a few weeks back, I had what might have been the worst mother’s day experience of my life that started with taking my mom out for lunch and ended with me peeling out of the parking lot. I didn’t shed a tear then. But when my Xbox refused to let me play GTA 4… I literally welled up. It was as though my therapist had just died in the middle of a breakthrough session.
I’ll be at GameStop as soon as they open tomorrow to try and fix this quickly. And hopefully, I won’t have to wait long before I get to play again. I find it interesting that my 360 has been 100% awesome until I started playing GTA 4. It’s not like I haven’t spent a full day playing a game before. I also find it interesting that many of my friends who are playing GTA 4 right now are having similar issues. Could it be possible that Microsoft put a bug in the game to make your 360 crap out KNOWING that those without warranties would be more willing to invest in a new system? The last time I heard about a bunch of red rings was with the release of Halo 3. Coincidence? Planned all along? You decide…
Last night I went to the Bar of Soap – the most magical place on earth. It’s where I do my laundry AND where I drink my beer. The concept is genius. Washers, dryers, a small arcade and air hockey table in the back… a bar with cheap beer in frosty mugs and a stained pool table up front. Because really, what else are you going to do while you’re waiting for your laundry? On the weekends, you can come rock your socks off (and then wash them) with one of the many awesome bands they have play there. Some nights Drew – my fave bartender – will hold Guitar Hero competitions or bring up some other games. It’s pretty much the best laundry experience ever (unless you drink too much while your clothes are in the dryer and leave them there…)
So in addition to the awesome concept of the place, the people who work there are a rare breed. Check out this out of order note on one of the dryers:
And there’s graffiti on damn near every surface. I thought you guys would get a kick out of the latest addition to the bathroom door:
This morning, my friend Mike showed me this post about a Pac-Man movie in the making. This one is courtesy of Steven Paul (Bratz, Ghost Rider) who apparently received a ton of money to melt audience’s eyes with not only this monstrosity, but also a movie based on Castlevania. Why do people like Steven Paul and Eww Boll insist on making shitty movies based on video games? Can’t people come up with their own content anymore? Srsly. (Sidenote: The Hitman movie isn’t half-bad. Mostly because Olga Kurylenko walks around half-naked through the entire thing so it’s easier to ignore all the plot holes.)
The Pac Man movie sounds completely retarded. But the post talking about it on ars technica and comments that follow are hilarious, so you should read it.
I think permission to produce video game-based movies should be limited to folks with a low budget and a sense of humor like this one from Scott Gairdner:
When she's not busy blowing the heads off of enemies to get to the next level, she's usually playing video games.
7386|5155|0506|7121
TheGameDame
![[del.icio.us]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[MySpace]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Reddit]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/reddit.png)
![[Twitter]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://thegamedame.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
Why do people like Steven Paul and 
):
